Les aventures du prince Ahmad

THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED pit him against the evil African Sorcerer in an attempt to rescue beautiful Princess Peri Banu from terrible peril.

German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981) was fascinated with cutouts and puppetry from childhood. After seeing a silent film by the great Georges Méliès as a teenager, she knew that movies would be her destiny. Reiniger loved make believe and would eventually make films on a whole series of fabulous characters, from Dr. Dolittle (1928) and Puss in Boots (1936) to Thumbelina (1954) and Hansel & Gretel (1955).

Reiniger's area of expertise was in silhouette animation. Using a pair of scissors, she produced amazingly elaborate images from black paper and then had them back-lit and photographed one frame at a time, moving the cutouts slightly each time, thereby producing the illusion of movement. Her masterwork, after three years of labor, was THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED, produced eleven years before Disney's SNOW WHITE, thus becoming the world's first animated feature film.

The movie tells an exciting story from the world of the Arabian Nights, full of magic, menace & monsters, and incorporates the tale of Aladdin and his love for Achmed's sister Dinarzade, thus giving the movie two valiant heroes instead of only one. The romantic exploits are slightly leavened with a touch of delightful decadence and good humor, exemplified by Achmed's few moments in the seraglio on the magical Isle of Waq Waq.

It is fascinating how these pieces of black paper can evoke an emotional response from the viewer. It is a testimony to the wonderful artistry of their creator, Lotte Reiniger, a woman who richly deserves to be more celebrated by those interested in cinema history.

From the "Arabian Nights" this is a German silent animated film (with music score and color tints). It tells the story of Prince Achmed and hid adventures when he gets on a flying horse. He falls in love with Princess Peri Banu, fights the evil Sorcerer and meets up with the Fire Mountain Witch (!!) and Aladdin (whose story is also told).

This was done in silhouette animation--they use cutouts instead of drawings and film them frame by frame moving each piece a little at a time--this took three years to complete!

It's truly incredible--the cutouts are incredibly detailed and the animation itself is flawless--the characters move very smoothly. The story moves briskly and the color tints and great music score just complement the animation perfectly. Sadly this is little known. Maybe with the restored version playing it will get the recognition it richly deserves.

A great film for the whole family--if the kids don't mind reading subtitles.

Although "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is most commonly considered to be the first full-length, color-animated film of its kind, in 1926 this adaptation of the "Arabian Nights" stories was created using silhouette animation by Lotte Reiniger, and it's just as wonderful to look at.

She spent three years cutting out the figures to be used in the film, and the result is a visual marvel - I notice my television guide only gave it two and a half stars (from four), less than they gave "Batman Forever," but I fail to see what is unimpressive about this.

The story sees Prince Ahmed going on magical adventures with his flying horse, saving a beautiful princess and so on and so forth. It's the typical fantasy story told extremely well with visual craftsmanship that really makes this worth seeing alone. It's a silent film, only about an hour long, so it's an acquired taste. Film buffs will probably get more out of this than the average viewer, but I really enjoyed it.

The idea for "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" is unusual and interesting, and Lotte Reiniger uses it to create an enjoyable and distinctive feature. To make such a different approach work so well must have taken large amounts of both skill and patience, as well as the creativity to adapt the stories to the format.

The cutout-style animation that the feature uses ruled out a lot of options for the film-makers, and it put a premium on the careful design of the figures and on well-planned story-telling. At first, the plainness of the silhouette figures is somewhat apparent, but it's not long at all before the story is involving enough, and the animation creative enough, to give the characters and events plenty of life and energy.

The plot itself is taken from some of the old "Arabian Nights" tales, much of it from some of the less-familiar episodes. It is a good adaptation of the material, and the careful details in the outlines of the silhouette figures soon create an atmosphere that works even without colors or special visual tricks.

The style allows your own imagination to flesh out the characters, rather than providing an artist's depiction for every detail in the story. In this respect it makes an interesting contrast with the more usual kind of fantasy film that does try to make everything expressly visual. As soon as you get used to the style and concentrate on the story, it becomes quite interesting and at times even engrossing. Overall, it's an imaginative feature that works quite well.

Lotte Reiniger's "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" is one of the most amazing achievements in the history of cinema. The first animated movie ever, Achmed was based on the ancient stories "Arabian Nights." It took her three whole years to make, shooting over 250,000 cardboard cutouts with the assistance of her husband Carl Koch.

The German silent film begins with the creation of a flying horse. The African Magician tricks Prince Achmed into flying the horse, hoping to rid the kingdom of Achmed's presence. But Achmed is able to control the horse, and flies off to an island, where he finds the beautiful princess Peri Banu. In order to win her heart he must defeat the Magician, the Chinese Emperor, and an army of demons, with the help of Aladdin and a mysterious witch.

The irony of this movie is that the German subtitles are subtitled in English. But don't let that throw you, this silent masterpiece is magnificent film-making at its best, and certainly a landmark in cinema.